


lost and found

by umisabaku



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, M/M, Panic Attack Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 12:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umisabaku/pseuds/umisabaku
Summary: Sometimes Kenma feels like glass right before shattering.





	lost and found

Sometimes Kenma feels like glass right before shattering.

 _Stress,_ some call it, or _anxiety._ Not a panic attack (he knows what those feel like) but a bit like not breathing even though air is still flowing and _is it possible to drown on land_ he wonders. _Can you run out of oxygen even when breathing._

It’s people—sometimes people are too much. Or it’s everything all at once. Because if it’s one thing then it’s a million things all piled on top and so he retreats. He flees when he can to a place where there are no people and he takes out a game and he plays that game and he’s not playing so much as putting back a piece of himself that somehow fell out along the way. _Kenma has lost Kenma and he doesn’t know where to find him._ It’s not the game that’s important. (But the act—the retreat, the remove, the playing. He doesn’t need the game he needs a process that is solely his own.)

Somewhere in the playing, oxygen returns. The glass that felt so fragile feels less like it’s about to break. And he can be Kenma again; he can be quiet, and observant, and he can interact with people, and everything can be fine.

 _What is it like_ , he wonders. _What is it like not to be this way._

But. He can take care of himself. He has ways to cope, and he knows that’s more than some people ever get.

And when the day is done—school, volleyball practice, people and people and people, he can go home. Sometimes that means crawling under the blankets and recharging, and sometimes that means Kuroo.

When no one can see them, Kuroo wraps his arms around Kenma, and sometimes Kenma continues to play his game or read a book or do his homework, but sometimes he just leans in and breathes in Kuroo’s air and all the pieces of Kenma that feel so fragile are knit back together in the warmth of Kuroo’s body.

Kuroo doesn’t say anything most times—and that’s the nicest thing about Kuroo, he understands the value of silence—but sometimes, like today, he’ll murmur just nonsense things that are gentle to hear.

“ _You’re amazing, Kenma, you’re so amazing and so strong and incredible. I love you and I love you.”_

And somehow through all that Kenma finds himself again.

**Author's Note:**

> wooo I have been super stressed lately and needed to write a fic about my favorite introvert =D
> 
> Originally appeared on my tumblr (umisabaku.tumblr.com). Comments and kudos are always wonderful! Thank you so much for reading!


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